The Orioles were no-hit into the seventh inning three times in their last five games.
The Orioles were one win away from having a third consecutive winning week of the season entering last night’s game. They got one hit and lost. It is not exactly unrepresentative of their 2025 season. Just when you think they might actually be on the verge of doing something interesting, they instead revert to the form they’ve all-too-often displayed and get embarrassed.
This series looks at each Orioles game, the most crucial play that happened in it and who was involved, and the Oriole who contributed the most positive to a win or negative to a loss. As we all know by now, it’s been much more losing than winning. These determinations are made using the Win Probability Added stat, which you can find in game logs on Baseball Reference or FanGraphs.
Here’s how that looked over the past week:
Game 74
- Result: Orioles beat Rays, 4-1
- Record: 32-42
- The biggest play: Colton Cowser gives Orioles lead with three-run home run in sixth inning (+36%)
- The biggest hero: Cowser (.431 WPA)
If only the Orioles hadn’t dug such a deep hole for themselves through mid-May, wins like this one could be part of the fun story that they’re writing over the course of this season. One of their fun young players put the team on his back, got a clutch home run, and helped the team pull off a series split on the road against one of the division foes who is ahead of them in the standings.
It hasn’t worked out that way, of course. But this was still a good win, especially since it included Charlie Morton continuing his revival (.197 WPA) with one run allowed over six innings, and four relievers combining for three scoreless innings.
Game 75
- Result: Orioles beat Yankees, 5-3
- Record: 33-42
- The biggest play: Ramón Urías hits solo home run to give Orioles 4-3 lead in eighth inning (+25%)
- The biggest hero: Gary Sánchez (.225 WPA)
Same as the previous game, if only the Orioles had been better before, this could have been a real signature win. Cy Young contender Max Fried on the mound for the Yankees, the O’s overcame a rough start by their own starting pitcher, then held the line thanks to some surprisingly good pitching from the mostly-unheralded Scott Blewett (.174 WPA).
With Jackson Holliday getting three hits and Coby Mayo adding a pair, this was even a strong game for some of the youngest Orioles. Oh yeah, and Sánchez, the former hyped Yankee prospect got two of the biggest hits of the game. All the Orioles had to do was win one of the next two games and they could feel good about winning a series in New York. About that…
Game 76
- Result: Orioles lose to Yankees, 9-0
- Record: 33-43
- The biggest play: Trent Grisham hits solo home run to put Yankees up 1-0 in first inning (-10%)
- The biggest goat: Zach Eflin (-.311 WPA)
With Eflin giving up a run in the first inning, two in the second inning, and three in the third inning, Orioles batters essentially never took a high-leverage at-bat in the game. The Orioles had to finish this game with a position player pitching. As for the batters, it’s lucky for them that they didn’t have any high-leverage situations, because they collected a grand total of one hit across the game’s nine innings.
Another 2025 Orioles disappointment. They follow up the fun win against Fried by getting worked by Clarke Schmidt. Alright, in fairness, Schmidt’s been pretty good this year, and he had a 2.84 ERA after his seven hitless, shutout innings.
Game 77
- Result: Orioles lose to Yankees, 4-2
- Record: 33-44
- The biggest play: Bryan Baker gives up two-run eighth inning double to Jazz Chisholm Jr., giving Yankees 3-2 lead (-42%)
- The biggest goat: Baker (-.639)
The Orioles scored two runs in the first inning against relatively anonymous Yankees pitcher Will Warren (4.66 ERA after this game) and then did not score again for the rest of the game. How typical. 2-11 with RISP in this contest, with each of Ramón Laureano and Cedric Mullins taking sizable negatives for the day as they went 0-4.
All of that meant that Baker’s meltdown led to what is, I believe, the biggest negative number I’ve seen in an Orioles game this year. Not only did he blow the lead, he let the Yankees come out of it with a two-run lead. The Orioles were 70% to win when Baker entered for the bottom of the eighth and only 6% to win by the time he left. Most of the bullpen was due to be bad after a real hot stretch and Baker got the first blowup out of the way.
Game 78
- Result: Orioles beat Rangers, 6-0
- Record: 34-44
- The biggest play: Jackson Holliday puts Orioles up 4-0 with three-run homer in fifth inning (+22%)
- The biggest hero: Trevor Rogers (.326 WPA)
Eight shutout innings from Trevor Rogers. No, really! Grinding out that many innings, many of which had a narrower score than the ultimate 6-0 result, gave Rogers the slight edge over Holliday for the game (.323 WPA). Holliday was not the only Orioles batter to tag Rangers starter Patrick Corbin, who’s been the game’s worst pitcher over the last four seasons before this but had been showing improvement with Texas this year.
It’s really hard to lose after your starting pitcher goes eight shutout. I’m sure the 2025 team could find a way, but they did not on this occasion. In all, the Rangers got just three hits. This was a good win, and it was over in two hours and eight minutes, so fans who went (including my wife and I) were walking out well before it was dark.
Game 79
- Result: Orioles lose to Rangers, 6-5, in 10 innings
- Record: 34-45
- The biggest play: Dylan Carlson strikes out with tying run on third base, one out in tenth inning (-25%)
- The biggest goat: Carlson (-.285 WPA)
A lot of stupid things had to happen for the Orioles to lose this game after storming ahead dramatically with five runs as Gary Sánchez, Ramón Urías, and Ryan O’Hearn went back-to-back-to-back in the bottom of the seventh inning. It was stupid even before that, with the Orioles being no-hit into the seventh by somebody named Jacob Latz. And, indeed, a lot of stupid things did happen afterwards too.
One stupid thing is that the consecutive homers consisted of 75% of the hits the Orioles collected in the game. Another was Gregory Soto allowing a leadoff walk, the combination of Soto and Sánchez allowing two stolen bases, then the tying run scoring on a sacrifice fly. Yes, the Rangers didn’t even need a hit to tie the game. Nor did they need a hit to take the lead in the tenth: Seranthony Domínguez had a wild pitch to put the Manfred Man on third base, and he then scored on a fielder’s choice where the Orioles couldn’t throw out the runner going home.
Why did it end up with Carlson facing that clutch situation? That’s because Cedric Mullins hit a sacrifice bunt to advance the Orioles own Manfred Man with one out. In win probability terms, this was a bad idea, shaving 3% off the Orioles’ chance to win the game. You have a better shot with three guys trying to get a hit than you do with the first guy setting up the second to possibly score the runner with no hit. Carlson was not up to the task of scoring the run without getting a hit. Jackson Holliday flew out to end it (-16%).
Game 80
- Result: Orioles lose to Rangers, 7-0
- Record: 34-46
- The biggest play: Josh Jung hits two-run home run off Brandon Young to give Texas 3-0 lead in fourth inning (-20%)
- The biggest goat: Young (-.163 WPA)
About all that you can say about this is that at least in this game, when the Orioles got no-hit into the eighth inning, at least it was a bona fide ace of MLB, Jacob deGrom, instead of the aforementioned Latz or Schmidt.
Young, the Orioles starting pitcher, was not very good in this game, allowing four runs over four-plus innings, but I thought he should have been pushed farther rather than being lifted at 61 pitches. It’s time to start finding out which inexperienced pitchers might have the juice to make it onto a more successful O’s roster next year. Or even just for the sake of the 2025 team, perhaps it would have been better to not require another five innings of bullpen use when those guys have all been used a lot lately.
The best Orioles so far
This time last week, the best Orioles hitter by WPA was Ryan O’Hearn (1.77) and the best pitcher was Seranthony Domínguez (1.32). Updated numbers through this week:
- WPA (hitters): O’Hearn (2.10), Gunnar Henderson (0.76), Colton Cowser (0.67)
- WPA (pitchers): Domínguez (1.41), Félix Bautista (1.17), Trevor Rogers (0.62)
- fWAR: O’Hearn leads all O’s batters with 2.0; Dean Kremer’s 1.1 leads pitchers
O’Hearn had been going in the wrong direction for a couple of weeks, so it’s nice to see his number go back up again. Also a positive is that Domínguez and Bautista are racking up successes in high-leverage situations to move up and stay high on the list.
The team’s bWAR leaders are Henderson (2.2), O’Hearn (1.7), and Ramón Laureano (1.7). The highest-placed pitcher is Tomoyuki Sugano at 1.5.
The worst Orioles so far
In last week’s update, the worst active hitter was Adley Rutschman (-0.58) and the worst pitcher was Charlie Morton (-1.45). Players who are not currently active on the roster are noted separately. Here’s how things stand now:
- WPA (hitters): Jackson Holliday (-0.51), Jordan Westburg (-0.44), Coby Mayo (-0.35)
- WPA (pitchers): Morton (-1.39), Zach Eflin (-0.60), Dean Kremer (-0.41)
- WPA (not here now): Heston Kjerstad (-1.94), Cade Povich (-1.37), Kyle Gibson (-1.26)
- fWAR (active): Mayo (-0.3) and Eflin (-0.3) tied
Two not currently active Orioles are at the bottom for bWAR: Kjerstad (-1.4) and Gibson (-1.1). At the bottom of active Orioles are Mayo (-0.6) and Morton (-0.6).